California banned horse slaughter in 1998, and I was told that animal abuse and neglect didn go up. Doesn that mean a federal law would be effective?
In 1998, California banned the possession, transfer, receipt, or holding of any horse, pony, burro, or mule with the intent to have it slaughtered for human consumption. Although the number of reported horse thefts declined following passage of the law, the percentage of animals recovered after theft also declined. Reports of animal abuse or neglect did not increase. However, there has been no investigation of the number of horses that may have been shipped out of the state under false pretense and sent to slaughter. The number of horses slaughtered in the United States declined from 1997 to 1998 (before passage of the California law), and declined further from 1998 to 1999 and from 1999 to 2000, but has increased since that time. It does not appear that passage of the California law had a substantial, long-term impact on the number of horses slaughtered nationwide; it is likely that horses were illegally transported out of California, or that horses from other areas filled any void cr
